Disclaimer: Not mine. I don't think I'm capable of writing an episode as epic and awesome as tonight's was.

Author's Note: One of what I'm sure will be a couple million post-eps to 7x6, "The Time Of Our Lives." Written in just over an hour, now that I'm finally done sobbing hysterically over the episode.

Bedtime Love Story

"Tell me more about this alternate universe you dreamed about, Castle," she said softly, lazily, her breath and her voice trailing across his naked chest.

"You want a bedtime story, Mrs. Castle?" Mrs. Castle. He turned his head just enough to glance at the clock on the nightstand. Kate had been Mrs. Castle for… oh… 6 hours and 23 minutes now. Give or take. He had been calling her Mrs. Castle all evening, partly because he loved the sound of it, loved knowing that Kate was finally, finally Mrs. Castle, but mostly because he really, really loved the way her eyes lit up when he called her that, the glints of green and gold catching sparks from all the lights, the soft flush in her cheeks.

"Mrs. Castle," she murmured. "I like the sound of that."

He smiled. It really was like she could read his mind sometimes.

"Yeah, me too," he agreed. "But if you want a bedtime story, I can think of much happier ones than the alternate universe one."

"Maybe later. I want the alternate universe one first."

"It was really weird," he finally began, starting with the stuff that was easier to talk about. "But it was… not a good universe."

"What was bad about it?"

"Everything. I don't know how you and I meeting could have changed things for everyone—maybe it had nothing to do with it—but everyone was just… not right. Espo was pining after Lanie who was pregnant with some other guy's kid."

"Hmm, maybe we shouldn't tell Espo about that," she mumbled.

"Yeah, maybe not. Although… if it gets Espo to wake up and actually commit to something with Lanie, it might not be a bad thing. Ryan… wasn't married to Jenny. He talked about Jenny, said she might have been 'the one' but work got too busy and he lost contact with her so they never married."

"Oh, no, really? But that would mean—"

"No Sarah Grace," he finished for her. "I know. And it was just… wrong… you know, for Ryan to be talking in terms of 'if only' and 'maybe.' Ryan's the believer, you know, he deserves to have the perfect family and the happiness he's found with Jenny, if anyone does."

"Yeah, he really does. We won't tell Ryan about this alternate universe."

"No. He doesn't need to hear about it," he agreed easily. "Alexis… well, Alexis had moved out to California a couple years before. We weren't… close anymore. But in my dream, we sort of reconnected."

"I'm glad of that, Castle. I can't imagine you not being close to Alexis. What happened between you two—in your dream, that is?"

"I… uh… she said it was because I gave up. After the writer's block I fell into after killing off Derrick Storm—and with no inspiration for Nikki Heat—I just gave up and she, the other Alexis, couldn't help and it got too hard for her so she moved out to California."

"But you managed to reconnect? In your dream?"

He smiled. It was probably one of the few good things that had happened in that universe, the one thing that had almost managed to make him feel that maybe, everything wasn't completely hopeless in that other universe. Maybe he could fix things, get back to his life and his Kate. Fitting that Alexis, the center of his world in this life, managed to ground him, bring some hope to him in that other life. "Yeah, we reconnected. It was… good. It gave me hope again that not everything was lost, that I'd find my way back to you."

"Castle?"

"Hmm?"

"What about… us? What was going on with us?"

He hesitated. What part of all that had happened, all that he'd seen—dreamed?—did he want to tell her? But no, what was he thinking? This was Kate—his wife—his Mrs. Castle. His best friend and his partner in life, he thought, feeling the sudden prick of (manly) tears at the reminder of their vows. He could tell her anything.

"We were… strangers, mostly. You—the other you—told me that we met once, before the book party we first officially met at. She said she'd met me once at a book signing, that you waited in line to get a book signed." He turned his head to look at her. "Kate, did we meet before the Storm Fall book party? Did you really get a book signed by me?"

She gave him a small smile, turning her head to drop a light kiss on his shoulder. "Yes, I went to a signing."

"You've never told me that before," he said, feeling an odd little quiver or something pass through him—like déjà vu, he thought, because he'd dreamed—or something—saying this. And wondered, again, how on earth he could possibly have met Kate, signed a book for her, and not… remembered her? Not noticed her? Not somehow… sensed… that the woman he was signing a book for was the love of his life?

She laughed softly. "Consider it another piece of the mystery that is me."

He cupped her cheek in his hand and kissed her softly. "My favorite mystery," he murmured against her lips.

She smiled slightly against his lips as he drew back. "Mm, Castle, have I ever told you that I love kissing you?"

He laughed softly. "No, but I'm glad to hear it because the feeling's entirely mutual, Mrs. Castle."

"I think I might deserve a sainthood for resisting the urge to kiss you again for more than a year after our first kiss," she mumbled against his shoulder and he felt her lips curve, heard the thread of humor in her voice.

"Mm, no, I don't think the Catholic Church grants sainthoods for that and anyway, I don't think we want to be encouraging that kind of abnormal will-power," he quipped.

"No, you're right. I wouldn't wish that kind of torture on anyone else."

"It's so reassuring to find out I didn't marry a sadist," he commented to the air.

She choked on a laugh and poked him in the side, making him yelp.

"Hey! Keep that up and I won't finish my story," he threatened. "Besides, starting out our married life with abuse like that isn't nice."

"Our married life," she echoed. "Can you believe it, Castle? We're married!"

"I know. I was there," he said, trying to sound dry but knowing his voice betrayed his emotion. Married. To Kate. God, all his birthdays and Christmases had just happened in one day, in one evening.

"Finish telling the story of our other selves, husband," she instructed.

He felt a silly grin split his face at that word. Husband. Yeah, he kind of loved that word too, at least when Kate said it. Husband. He was her husband.

"The rest of our story? It's not really a happy one," he finally said and he knew a bit of grimness seeped into his tone at some of the memories. "I, the other me that is, was… lost, spiraling down, and my life was… meaningless," he said, remembering with a slight inward shudder the blonde bimbo that had let herself in to his mother's loft—he couldn't think of it as being his. He couldn't imagine it—still having meaningless flings with women whom he didn't know, didn't like, and couldn't care less about. The very thought was… sickening and depressing too. He couldn't imagine it, didn't want to imagine it—ever simply "having sex" again, not after having made love with Kate. He had thought it before but it was the stark, literal truth—Kate had ruined him for any other woman, for the rest of his life. He grimaced and bent to kiss Kate—his Kate, his Mrs. Castle—again. "You're the only woman in the world for me, Kate Castle," he breathed softly. Kate Castle. Ooh, yeah, he liked the sound of that, maybe even more than he liked the sound of Mrs. Castle.

"Mm, good. Because I do believe you're stuck with me for life now, Richard Beckett."

He laughed softly. "I don't remember agreeing to change my name. Again."

"Just between us," she teased. "Now, tell me more about this Captain Kate Beckett. Did you like her?"

"She was you, Kate. Of course I liked her. If there's one thing this dream—alternative universe hallucination thing has taught me, it's that in every universe, in every reality, I would love you, no matter what else has happened in our lives."

"Oh, Rick…" she whispered.

"I died," he blurted out suddenly. Stupidly, really. He felt her stiffen, heard her suck in a sharp breath, and he continued on quickly, "In my dream, I mean. That was—that was how it ended, the last thing that happened before I woke up again. I was trying to bring you—the other you—coffee, because I thought that what I needed to do to get back home was to prove to you that in every universe, we were better off together, but I got taken hostage and taken to the factory and… and one of Lark's minions tried to shoot you so I shielded you."

"Rick… in your dream, even though in that universe, we weren't engaged, you still died to save me? Why—why would you do that?" Her voice shook a little.

He tightened his arm around her and kissed her forehead. "Because, Kate, like I told the other you in my dream when she asked that very question, I love you. No matter what universe we're in, no matter what version of you or me exists, I would love you, do love you. And you ought to know by now that there's nothing I wouldn't do to save you—any version of you."

She let out a strangled sob, her arm tightening across his chest as she buried her face in his neck. "Castle…"

"Kate, sshh," he murmured soothingly, stroking one hand up and down her back. "I'm right here. It was only a dream, you know that."

She sniffled a little. "It's not that, Castle. It's just… I can't lose you. I already thought I lost you when you were missing and I can't—I can't go through that again and I… can't even think about it. I can't bear the thought of a world without you in it."

"Ssh, Kate," he murmured again, now kicking himself for having told her all the stupid, tragic details of his dream/hallucination. He'd made her cry on their wedding night. Damn it. Nice going, Rick. He turned over onto his side, wrapping his arms around her and tugging her in against him, curling his body around hers. He kissed her eyelids, kissed away the few tears on her cheeks. "I'm sorry. I'm so sor—"

"No, Rick," she interrupted his incoherent apology, her voice startlingly firm, sounding much more Beckett-like. "You have nothing to be sorry for. I never want you to apologize for loving me."

"I wasn't!" he protested quickly. Good God, he would never! "I wouldn't! I only meant I was sorry for making you cry on our wedding night."

"You don't have to apologize for that either," she answered him. "That was just me and I asked to hear the story."

"Still," he mumbled in rather automatic protest. "I hate knowing I made you cry, Kate."

She sniffed a little and managed a small smile for him. "It's okay, Rick. I just… love you. And don't you know all brides are supposed to cry?"

"I think that's during the ceremony, not during the wedding night."

"Well, we've never really done things the normal way, Castle," she murmured, surprising him into a small laugh.

She smiled at him in response, a full beaming smile, green and gold sparking in her eyes once again.

"I love you, Kate Castle," he blurted out—because he really, really just needed to tell her again. He suspected he would be telling her he loved her at random times (possibly every hour or so) for at least the next couple days and calling her Kate Castle or Mrs. Castle even more frequently than that.

"I love you too, Richard Castle."

She tightened her arms around him, pressing herself against him, letting her naked body slide along his in all sorts of… interesting… ways, and he gasped, feeling his body immediately respond. "And now," she breathed against his lips, "I believe you said something about it being our wedding night still so…. Make love to your wife, Mr. Castle."

"Your wish is my command, Mrs. Castle," was all he managed to say and swallowed her small laugh with his mouth as he kissed her.

And that was the end of story telling for the night, at least story telling through words, but not of the story told by their bodies, the wordless communication manifest in every kiss, every caress, every touch, every gasp.

I love you I love you I love you…

Always…

~The End~

A/N 2: I don't think I have words to describe tonight's ep. And I don't think I've really done justice to it in this fic either. But oh well, one can but try.